Pedestrian Carrying Capacity on Walkway

Abstract

Walkway in recreational area are facilities not merely for traffic but also for recreation. It is necessary to control pedestrian traffic volume under some critical value for keeping amenity on the paths. To estimate the pedestrian traffic carrying capacity, field surveys were made. They revealed the relationship between the pedestrian volume and the velocity of each visitor. The velocity decreased with the increase of pedestrian traffic volume. The deviations in velocity also decreased. This means that at heavier traffic volume, visitors cannot choose their velocity freely because of the crowded condition. The mean velocity was approximated as v=69.35-0.54t, and the standard deviation of the velocity s=15.06-0.17t, in whicht is traffic volume. Under conditions in which there is no restriction due to crowding, which can be supported as the desirable situation, the velocities ranged from 39 to 99m·min.^-1 By using the two equations, the percentage of visitors, whose velocities would be controlled out of the desirable range, could be calculated at any traffic volume. The study revealed that more than 85% of the visitors could enjoy walking within the desirable range of velocity if the traffic volume is kept under than 9.8 visitors·min.^-1·m.^-1.